


truth is not the end;

by yavanei



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Fade Dreams, Sexual Content, post-game exploration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-22
Updated: 2014-12-22
Packaged: 2018-03-02 19:51:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2824052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yavanei/pseuds/yavanei
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He should have avoided it; he should have lanced the wound, sliced into it and cut it out entirely before the malady seeped into his bloodstream. He should have avoided <i>her.</i> But the ripple of her wave consumed him, and dragged him under. </p><p>She could annihilate him with a single kiss, and he could destroy her with the softest spoken word.</p>
            </blockquote>





	truth is not the end;

She dreams of a cage painted crystal, she dreams of a world uprooted – pieces of desolate land floating among smoky clouds, the decrepit remains of once wondrous palaces scattered across the earth, devoured and destroyed throughout the ages.

 _You abandoned us, da’len,_ Keeper Deshanna’s voice fills her ears.

She sees inky blackness, and halla skewered in the shallows of oceans, torn apart by ravenous wolves, gushing blood, gushing blood and dying.

The water runs red.

Darkness closes in from all sides, shuttering her vision like curtain drapes being closed. A hand is holding her under.

 _Surface_ –

Electrical currents fire and snap off every corner of her psyche, screaming across her neurological pathways, demanding, demanding.

 _Surface_ –

She inhales involuntarily, the single breath dragging the red into her mouth and windpipe. Her body slumps in the water, deprivation of oxygen consuming her. She can feel her spirit succumbing. Water rushes through her nose and freely seeps into her open mouth, effectively flooding her lungs.

 _Surface_ – _Surface_ – _Surface_ –

Her eyes burst open.

Black paw prints dig into the earth, nails grate against tile, and she runs. She runs in dreams, through twisting shadow realms, down spiraling corridors at the end of all things and the beginning.

There is broken glass in her hand, and –

She peers down. Her face is distorted in the glass, features blurred beyond recognition. She sees images flashing in the depths of the mirror – a whirlwind of memory and feeling.

A young girl. A young girl clenching her hands into tight fists, gritting her teeth, doing everything in her power not to cry out when the tattoos are inked onto her face.

She looks again –

Her face is bare.

 _Gone_ , her Keeper’s voice whispers. _Gone. All gone._

She tries to answer – her lips move and no sound escapes. Her tongue is missing.

They are burning the bodies. They are burning them, reducing them to scattered remains of nothing more than acrid ash and all she can do is watch. The villagers of Haven die in their homes. The villagers of Haven die in a tavern once filled with joy and song. The villagers of Haven die, suffocating on putrid toxic smoke as men with crystals rotting through their flesh light the fires, as men with crystals butcher the weak, and she does nothing to stop it.

_Mortals beg for truth they cannot have._

The snow clings to her skin, seeps into her boots, the wet squishing between her toes as she trudges through. There is blood trickling from a gash on her forehead – an injury from the fall? – and the crimson stains the tips of her black eyelashes. She wipes a shaking, frostbitten hand across her face, smearing the mark – no, the _anchor_ – with blood.

Wolves howl in the distance.

 _Surface_ –

She stalls, knee deep in the snow, eyes frantic and searching but she can’t see anything for miles – no fire, no signs of light. The howling is her only constant companion.

It is said in the days of Halamshiral, wolf companions walked alongside Emerald Knights, never leaving their side. Theirs was a bond so unbreakable that wolf and elf would fight together, eat together, and when the knights slept, the wolves would guard them.

She doubts the intentions of these creatures howling in the distance is as pure.

 _Surface_ –

The wind is whipping at her face and she can barely move she is so cold. She thinks she will die here, after everything, after surviving an encounter with an ancient magister and an archdemon she will die here in the snow, alone. They have forgotten her. The howling draws closer. They are not looking for her. Why would they? They wanted her dead in the beginning, manacles chained to her wrists, and now they will leave her here to die.

The wind is so strong it knocks her back, the snowstorm obscuring her view, and when she regains her footing there is a white wolf sitting in front of her, and she remembers……

This isn’t how it happened.

_What have I told you about perception shaping our existence?_

There's a ghost in the mirror. A reflection of the blind, the deaf, the unknown. The tips of her fingernails are bleeding as she scrabbles at the prison. She bangs at the walls and the noise hammers like an erratic pulse, her knuckles bloody and her eyes – her eyes –

She sees pieces falling into place, the board written on the back of her eyelids, Knights and Ben-Hassrath, Queens and Arishoks, Mages and Tamassrans, pawns and pawns and –

Queen to F6.

Ben-Hassrath to F6.

Mage to E7. Checkmate.

He sacrificed the queen. He sacrificed the queen and he would do it again. He sacrificed _her_ and he would do it again.

_Nothing is ever won without something else being lost._

Every night she looks in the mirror. Every night she traces the patterns where her vallaslin once was, and she feels him there.

She feels his fingers hissing across her skin, and then she tastes blood. He is inside her, blanketing the air around her, her hands are outstretched toward sunlight, the warmth rising through her chest and she misses – _No._

_Harden your heart to a cutting edge._

She hears him just as clearly as if he were right in front of her, can practically feel the vibrations of his voice –

_Beautiful. You are so… beautiful._

Her nails dig into the hardwood of her desk as she fights back the urge to cry. She bites into her lip so hard she tears the skin, bruises it purple. She licks her lips, tries to soothe the wound, and tastes the metal in her mouth again.

_Harden your heart. Harden your heart. Harden –_

A hollow laugh breaks free from behind her teeth. What is the power of Corypheus? What is the power of her anchor? What is the power of the Inquisition? What is _anything_ when compared to this all-consuming hunger? The need eats at her insides every day, bit by bit, just a little more, until she is raw and ragged.

 

_“Pretender pretending. Why smile when it’s forced?” Cole asks._

_"Most people don’t like to be confronted with something as unpleasant as the truth,” she explains. “It’s easier this way. I don’t want to burden the others with my problems.”_

_"But it’s hurting you – with **him** I never had to fake –"_

_She places a hand to the top of his mop of blond hair, ruffling it a bit. “I don’t have to pretend with you, and that’s all that matters."_

 

The first time he touched her, her nerves went on fire. Not pain, but not pleasure either – the feeling was simply the result of the anchor. She would feel it again many times over, but hadn’t realized this in the beginning.

From the moment he wrapped his hand around hers, thrust it up into the sickly green sky – a sky crackling with bursts of uncontrollable energy emanating from the tear – and used the anchor to seal her first rift ( _their_ first rift) nothing was ever the same.

He touched her, and her whole world changed.

_Ar lasa mala revas. You are free._

Who knew freedom could feel so suffocating.

She sucks in a breath, opening her eyes. She is the Inquisitor. She must _endure_. So, she says the words, because a lie is always easier than the truth.

_I say what I believe to be true_ , _even if it gives offense to those who prefer the lie_.

A lie is always…

 

_"Truth or lie?" Leliana asks, not raising her eyes from the letter she is addressing._

_"Truth," Lavellan says without hesitation._

_"I may not know who Solas truly was, or what his real motives were,” she sets down the quill in her hand. “But I do know a little about deception.”_

_She stands from her desk, passes by Lavellan as she rolls the letter up, tying it to one of the ravens. She coos softly at the bird, petting it with the back of two fingers before she sends it on its way. She crosses back to where Lavellan is standing, and places a firm hand to her shoulder._

_There is a small, reassuring – if not somewhat sad – smile on her pink lips. “It is always both, Inquisitor.”_

_"That wasn't the answer I was expecting," Lavellan whispers._

_"You wanted the truth. If you asked me to lie, I would have told you he was simply a snake, a viper who concealed his identity and was likely using the Inquisition from the start for his own ends. Don’t mistake me. All of that may be true, but for a lie to mean anything, it must be carefully mixed with the truth. And sometimes it becomes hard to untangle what the lie is from the truth.”_

_Lavellan casts her eyes downward, and she feels Leliana’s hand massage her tense shoulder, rubbing circular motions into her flesh, as she reminds her that she is never far and she will keep searching._

 

Did he know the only thing left of them would be left in ruins?

"I hate you," she bites out, tears stinging at the edge of her vision.

Because a lie is always so much easier than the truth.

Cold hands slide across her slender hip bones. “Is that so?”

“You’re not –” she gasps when his mouth meets the supple skin around her ear, jolting her to life. “Not… real.”

“How do you know?”

“The spirits…. they recognize the bond between souls, and recreate it in dreams. That’s all you are.”

“The fade is a manifestation of your hopes, your worst thoughts… your fears. Am I simply a copy? A shallow reflection of your desires? Wouldn’t you know the difference?”

"I don’t kn – "

He tugs her body back to meet his, hard and fast, and she exhales a shaky breath when her head snaps up at the impact. She feels his heartbeat, steady and slow, just below her shoulder, his lips like feathers hovering _just_ over her skin. Close enough to feel them tickle at her neck – an agonizing, delicious, sensation – with space enough between his mouth and her skin, a space too small and too large all at once but wicked all the same, wicked enough to leave her _wanting._

"You do know,” he whispers against the hollow of her throat. “We’ve talked about this. The anchor allows you to dream with remarkable focus."

"You say that, but I searched. Every night. I couldn't find you,” she pauses, realization dawning. "You stayed away, didn't you? How?”

"I'm here now.”

She closes her eyes when his lips make a path down her jaw, gentle, but urgent in application. When she opens them, they are no longer in her chambers. The sky is dark, the stars barely in view through the thick canopy of tall trees that surround them in the small copse. The grass sways softly in the wind, a shade of emerald in the shadows.

“Where are we?” there’s a note of surprise in his voice.

Before the conclave, she traveled with her clan in the Free Marches along the borders of each city-state’s territory. In those days, Lavellan would spend time exploring the forests for days on end, bringing any pertinent information back to the Keeper and the hunters of their new location. It was, in truth, as much for herself as it was for them. Being in the forests, surrounded with only the trees and herself was peaceful. Solitude was always something she found comfort in.

“Another place that is important to me,” she says.

He smiles when she tells him it was in this copse her talent for magic first manifested. At age six she accidentally set fire to a tree, and it was one of the happiest, most nerve-wracking moments of her young life. Even then, she had known that being connected to magic, an art her Keeper once told her all of their people used to have in the days of Arlathan, would change her life forever.

Solas tightens his grip on her waist, arms locking around her smaller form, and she feels his chin come to rest atop her hair as his eyes scan the area she has seamlessly brought to life.

“Thank you,” he says, softly.

“For?”

“For this. Sharing this part of yourself with me,” he kisses the tip of her ear, and she slumps into his chest, practically dissolving at his touch.

“It’s nothing,” she says, suddenly feeling a little self-conscious.

“It’s not ‘nothing.’ Do give yourself some credit. You continue to shatter rules of man and nature,” he says. “Manipulating the fade so easily, even as a mage, in such a short span of time – it took me years to exert this level of control here.”

“Yet I still wasn’t good enough to find you,” she can’t help the indignation that creeps into her voice. “Who are you?”

“The answer will only complicate matters further.”

“Is Solas even your real name?”

A beat. He shifts his weight from left to right behind her, fingers kneading into her hipbones, hesitating, hesitating, and she thinks just _maybe_ – he finally _might_ –

“Does it matter?” he sighs. “It is a name, like any other. Given for a purpose.”

“No,” she decides. “But why have you come?”

She turns in his embrace, and levels him with a stern expression. His eyes are clear, unblinking, but there is sorrow in the depths of them.

“Because you sought me. Because I am selfish,” he averts his gaze. “Because I am weak.”

She reaches out to touch his face, but he catches her hand with his own, curls her fingers down one by one until his palm is covering her small fist.

"Listen to me, if there was another way, another choice –"

Solas centers his gaze on her, eyes harsh and dark. He opens his mouth, and she thinks he might continue speaking, but he draws in a sharp breath and his hands come to rest at her cheeks, thumbs set neatly over the press of her lips, fingers digging into her hair under her ears. Her eyelids flutter to a close, reveling in his touch… how many nights did she lay awake in bed and ache for that touch…

But then he turns away. As he always does.

"Solas, stop," she fists a hand in his shirt, holding him in place. “Stop. I don’t want you to be kind.”

He does not make a move to face her, ignoring the insistence with which she tugs him toward her, but a strangled, choked laugh thrusts its way from his throat.

"Kind?" The bitter edge of the sound echoes between them. "When did I say I was kind?"

He covers her hands with his own, wrenching them free of his shirt. He takes both her wrists and walks her backward, his legs sliding against hers, one foot in front of the other as he propels her body back. She nearly stumbles over a root, but he catches her with ease around the waist, and braces her body against the nearest tree.

He holds her there for a moment – unmoving, still as stone, barely even touching her save the hold around her wrists. His eyes are cloudy and intense and his breath comes out in shallow, animal pants.

“Tell me to leave,” when he speaks his voice is thick with desperation, cracking under the pressure. “ _Vhenan, please.”_

She knows. She knows without him saying it. Things have always been easier for him in the fade. Perhaps too easy, and he can’t walk away this time of his own volition.

She’s not sure what this is. A goodbye, perhaps? The one they never got? She’s been so angry for months – angry with him, with herself, with everything.

Her Keeper used to caution her against such flagrant displays of emotion. _Such rage can lead nowhere good, da’len_ , she would say. _Remember how Mythal placed her hand on Elgar’nan’s brow, and soothed his anger. He knew it had led him astray._

But it doesn’t matter. Not now.

She presses her lips to his, furious and reckless. Her anger melts into his mouth, the blood in her veins scorching until she is aflame from the inside out.

And when he kisses her back it’s not like before. It’s a slow decay. Death. Rot.

It’s the kiss of a man who knows he is doomed, and perhaps always was.

 

* * *

 

“Tell me, lethallan, how would you define a god?”

She came to him for answers, for guidance, for counsel on Corypheus, but like all of their nightly encounters, the conversation seems to stray just a little too far, carry on just a little too long. Ever since the fall of Haven, when Skyhold is quiet and dusk rolls in, she sits with him by candlelight.

He asks her things sometimes, as if he knows she doesn't have a concrete answer for him. There's something about the way his eyes zero in on her, the way his mouth curves ever so slightly in satisfaction when she responds – as if he expects to be disappointed and is surprised when he is not.

How do you define a prophet? A messiah? A savior? These are things she has been called since walking out of the Beyond. They want her to be Andraste's Herald. They need her to be. Individuals are complex creatures, but people can be terrifyingly simple. _“Sheep,”_ Leliana called them once.

But that isn't the question at stake here.

How would you define a god?

Lavellan props her chin against two clasped hands, elbows resting against the wooden framework table in the center of Solas' study as she ponders the question.

A god is a story you tell to explain the world around you. A god is a story you tell to make yourself feel less alone, less afraid.

But this isn’t what she says.

“A god gives. A god takes. A god loves. A god shuns.”

His mouth slacks open slightly, and he shifts his position in the chair across from her.

“Interesting,” he says after a moment.

“Not the answer you were expecting, _hahren_?” she stresses the formality with a challenging gleam in her eyes.

“Perhaps, _da’len_ ,” he counters.

He stands from his chair, hands clasped behind his back as he circles the table. He comes to a stop just beside her, the expanse of his lower back leaning against the wood.

"You were the Keeper's First,” he crosses his arms, fixes her with a polite stare, "admired for your purity of blood, extending all the way back to the days of Arlathan..."

"Yes, the clans come from the ranks of nobility that once ruled the Dales, but not all Keepers are descended from those high priests who once served in the temples. My own Keeper was not."

“But you _are_ responsible for protecting and passing down the ancient lore.”

There’s a note of disdain in the way he says it still, but it’s softer – less accusatory than it was when she first met him. She knows his misgivings with the Dalish, and she can tell he means no harm.

“Not only that. The Keeper guides the people, mentors them, and protects the clan from the schemes of Fen’Harel.”

“Schemes?” he quirks an eyebrow, then suddenly laughs. “Oh, I see. You think the dreaded wolf lurks in every dark corner, eager to pounce and corrupt the minds of your unsuspecting people.”

“Something like that…” Lavellan purses her lips, caught off guard by the sudden condescending shift in his tone. “Let me guess, you don’t believe that?”

“What I believe is entirely inconsequential to you. I am not Dalish, I am no Keeper. Though I am curious, do you feel you have failed in this task?”

“It is no longer my task, I suppose. Ever since the conclave, that path is cut off to me,” she pauses, voice dropping several octaves. “And what you believe isn’t inconsequential to me, Solas. You know I value your insight.”

He holds her gaze for several moments, and then she feels the pads of his index and middle finger brushing lightly across her forehead. She doesn’t need a mirror to know he traces the patterns of her vallaslin.

“Dirthamen. Keeper of Secrets. A god your people value for outsmarting the ravens Fear and Deceit.”

Her eyelashes flutter as she lowers her gaze, holding her breath as his fingers follow a path down her face. Each and every place he touches is left charged and hot, her flesh vibrating when his fingers pull away, as if her very skin hungers for him – keenly aware of his absence.

His lips curve into a small, lazy grin. "Do you also aspire to conquer fear and deceit?"

She meets his eyes, then, a provoking smirk on her face. "Is there a person alive who wouldn't?"

They have not been this close since their kiss in the fade – the one he had called "impulsive and ill-considered." He told her he would think on it, but since then its been nothing but business as usual. Truly, if not for their conversation the next day – where he confirmed what happened – she would have likely written the entire thing off as figment of her imagination, nothing but a pleasant foray into the land of dreams.

His thumb traces down the angles of her face, and Lavellan can feel a blush rising to her cheeks. “What secrets are you keeping, Inquisitor?”

“They wouldn’t be secrets if I told them to you, now would they?”

“A good point,” he says, voice quiet, as he leans his body toward her.

His thumb massages gentle patterns into her cheek, and she tilts her head forward, barely aware of the way her tongue darts out to lick her lips, anticipating –

But he pulls back, shaking his head at her as he does so, before placing a chaste kiss to her forehead. “It’s late, lethallan. I apologize for keeping you.”

She exhales audibly, resisting the urge to take him by surprise again. She agreed to give him time to think it over – she just didn’t know that meant _weeks_.

"I’ll see you tomorrow," he says.

"Oh, I don’t know, I think I might bring Bull with me to the Cradle of Sulevin."

He falters in his step, angles his head to look back at her. “Did the Iron Bull become an expert on elven artifacts and the fade while I wasn’t looking?”

"Well, about that…” she starts, a clever, digging, comeback on the tip of her tongue –

“I’ll see you in the morning,” he interjects, his tone firm, if not slightly harsh.

“Touchy,” she mutters. “But, truly, Solas, you’re not the only person in the world.”

She knows he will understand her meaning, but she has doubts he will take the bait.

“No. I am simply the only one whom you go to the trouble of finding in your sleep,” he retorts. “How tiresome it must be, thinking of me all night.”

She drums her fingers against the table, biting her lip in an attempt to suppress the coy grin that threatens to break out on her face. She is unsure how she should feel about his caustic response, but the excited shiver running up her spine and the sudden climb in her pulse rate tells her she is far from dissatisfied. If anything, she’s rather smug that she managed to get this response from him at all.

“Perhaps you should focus your efforts elsewhere. I do not wish to distract you from your duties, Inquisitor.”

With that, he strides out of the room.

 

* * *

 

_We cannot change our nature by wishing._

There’s no right way to do this. He should have known better. But knowing and understanding has never stopped him from making terrible mistakes.

He told her the gods were fickle, arrogant, and thought themselves above reproach. What he hadn’t said: _I was – am – one of them._

He thought he’d outgrown such pettiness, such pride. But his mouth is laden with apologies he won’t speak, truths he won’t tell, and so he meets her lips with his own and he drowns each and every word in the taste of her.

The hollow space in his chest fills when her tongue slips inside his mouth, and his hands are no longer around her wrists, but instead gripping her arms as something violent and passionate and bloody coils in the pit of his stomach, burns throughout his entire body until he is certain she can taste it.

His nails dig into her skin and his mouth searches hers, searches for something he’s lost, searches for answers she can’t possibly have, and he searches until he is sucking and biting at her lower lip in a maddened haze because she is the only thing in this wretched, wrong, world that feels _right._

The stories will tell you Fen’Harel did not care for the people. The stories will tell you he was selfish, cruel, and perhaps they are true.

Stories are, after all, tools. A way to understand the world. They have a life of their own.

And in these stories it is said Fen'Harel spent centuries in a far corner of the earth, giggling madly and hugging himself in glee after the destruction of Arlathan was complete. The gods were betrayed, locked far away in the Beyond where they would never hear the prayers of the People again.

But what of the man?

Did the man carry out his task with perverse delight? Did the man look upon his work and smile? When it was all over, did the man tremble with pride at what he had wrought?

Or did Fen’Harel – both as much a man as he is a myth – awaken centuries later, and howl so loud he shook the stars and tore the very fabric of the Veil? And did he watch, in horror, as the whole world shuddered once more because of his actions?

Only a fool would mistake legend for history, but legends are relics in themselves – fragments of fragments of the truth and sometimes that is all people get. When everything is lost, shadows and ghosts of memory are all one can cling to. The cacophony of hushed whispers in the dark, the faintest echo of an unending symphony – scraps and shreds of _existence_.

_A mistake. One made by a much younger elf who was certain he knew everything._

He knows, of course he knows, this is wrong, this is selfish, this is unfair, he cannot love her, he cannot stay, he cannot be what she wants him to be, but he doesn’t _care._

So he does what only a god can do.

He _takes._

He takes her offering, he takes her love, he takes her need, he takes her want. He takes everything.

Wolves are carnivores – indeed, to pretend they are anything other than what they are would be foolish. And he has starved himself long enough.

Her hands are nudging against his chest, asking for air, but he tangles his fingers in her hair, tilting both of their heads as he deepens the kiss. He presses himself flush against her body, her back going ramrod straight against the tree as his free hand undoes the buttons of her shirt. When his thumb strokes over her breast, teasing the soft flesh, she moans loudly into his mouth.

Someday one’s mistakes may be all one has, and try as they might, people can’t change the past. They can only reshape the present in the hopes that one day the future will be brighter.

He tried. He failed.

What’s one more mistake piled on the already decaying carcasses of his people? What’s one more mistake compared to witnessing his people’s bones used as Tevinter’s foundation stones, their slave-blood lining the streets, their bodies misshapen and misused? What’s one more mistake? What will he tell the brothers who killed a city guard for raping their sister – will he judge them for joining the Qun then? What will he tell the alienage elves, the servants who work like dogs to please human nobles who will never acknowledge their existence?

In his time, he thought he saw the worst the world had to offer – warring between beings of immense power, the blood of those who would not submit filling lakes as wide as oceans. Misery. Corruption. Greed. Hypocrisy. He could no longer look on it without being sick. He could no longer watch nobles brand their slaves as an offering to their gods while Andruil hunted these same elves for sport in the name of sacrifice, while Elgar’nan descended into bouts of uncontrollable rage, while Falon’din’s vanity threatened to destroy everything as Mythal struggled to keep them in check.

How could he stand by and do nothing?

The stories will tell you Fen’Harel did not care for the people.

The stories are not true.

When he is a child, there is a village to the north, and as he slept he witnessed wonders he could never have possibly imagined. And now he is ancient, and the severity of what he has caused, the centuries of torment his people have endured is his burden to bear.

_I am not often thrown by things that happen in dreams._

But she crept into his bones and left something behind. She left something alive, something breathing and something _real_ inside of him. Her hands claw at his back, digging beneath his shirt in a frantic search for skin, and if he didn’t know better he would say her teeth are sharper than his.

There’s something the stories don’t tell, though.

All gods lie. They will hurt you, they will crush you, and then they will expect your devotion. They will expect you to be grateful. And as you choke on their love, they will laugh into dead air and demand you do it all over again.

He’s told himself he’s different. He’s told himself so many times. He walked away while the others stayed. He walked away from the pointless feuds, the bloody vendettas. He walked away from the corruption of power and he swore to make things better.

_But._

Did he do it to _save_ them?

Or did he do it to be _right_?

His mouth is on her breast, and her neck is splayed out for him, both of her hands moving to grip the sides of the tree for support, nails digging and scratching into the bark with every slide of his tongue, and his name is spilling from her lips in something he might call reverence if he dared to be so arrogant.

She would hate him if she knew. She would hate him. She would fear him and the thought makes his jaw clench as he pulls away, his fingers shaking like falling leaves over her flesh.

 

_Lavellan mindlessly toys with one of the papers on his desk – which should bother him – she’s crumpling up his work, but he just finds himself observing her in mute fascination. He is blissfully aware of the way her eyes glaze over when her mind is elsewhere – how refreshing to see someone almost more disconnected from reality than he is at times._

_"It’s strange. I’m not used to being away from forests. Being stationary for so long, it’s nice – I guess – to have somewhere to call home. But….different…” she says, absent-mindedly, staring at some fixed point on the wall, oblivious to everything else._

_Solas clears his throat, fingers tapping against his desk, drawing her out of her reverie._

_“Oh, sorry,” she jumps, slightly startled. “I was just….”_

_"Why exactly were **you** at the conclave?” he asks. “Why did your Keeper send the First instead of one of the hunters?"_

_"She thought I wasn’t ready to take over as Keeper. She said I needed to see more of the world, that I was too restless. And now…"_

_"Now you have had no choice but to become ready – forced to contend with far more,” he finishes her thought._

_She sighs, nodding._

_“The others, they don’t really understand. I know you aren’t Dalish either, but…..” she trails off again._

_“You miss your people. They were akin to your family, I imagine.”_

_“My Keeper told me once I surpassed her, she would give me my own Sylvanwood ring. Protection from evil spirits,” she says. “I guess that’s out of the question now.”_

_“Strange. I thought most Dalish Keepers wore the rings as a reminder of the Great Wolf’s betrayal, as he is a rather malevolent god in your lore.”_

_“That’s one reason, yes – a reminder to be wary of deception and of the Keeper’s duty to the clan. It’s not that we revere him, necessarily. It’s complicated,” she says._

_“Then, it’s a good thing I’m very well versed in dealing with the complicated.”_

_She stifles a laugh. “We don’t want to draw his gaze or his ire. We do it to appease him, hahren.”_

_She says the word – **appease** – with such finality he struggles to keep his face expressionless. He knew, of course he had known, but to hear it from her is… another matter entirely. He wonders if being outright reviled would be worse than this – the idea that any mortal must appease him._

_Her words crawl under his skin, and he resists the urge to argue with her, resists the urge to tell her – again – that they were no gods, they were people, like any others, and the last thing he would ever, ever in this world, want her to do is to yield, to placate, to appease him at the expense of her principles. Her beliefs, her will, her penchant for being utterly unpredictable, these are the most unique things about her, and –_

_He keeps himself at a distance. It is what he has become accustomed to doing. He must, lest people get too close. But he feels... sometimes, he feels himself crossing that bridge, just as he did in the fade when they shared a kiss. Moments when the mask falls away, and he is no longer soft, subtle, silent. Moments when he lets passion dictate things it should not dictate, moments when his emotions for her verge on being something too strong to simply call respect._

_Moments like now._

_There's an edge in his eyes, a hard set in his jaw, and he roughly grasps her chin with one hand, arching her head up until she meets his eyes. Confusion etches across her brow and her mouth parts slightly._

 

“You deserve better,” he says, voice soft and quiet.

She brings her hand to his throat, the dirt under her nails scraping against his skin as she works her fingers under the collar of his shirt. She yanks him back down to her, placing a soft, tender kiss to his lips in an attempt to blot out the grim expression on his face.

“Let me be the judge of that,” she says.

What did Cole say?

_Too bright. Like counting birds against the sun._

Yes. Too bright. Blazing. So bright he should look away but he can’t. He would rather spend eternity bathing in her warmth – a worthy alternative to Uthenera, he thinks. She reaches everything; she reaches across the very fabric of the fade and pulls it through to the other side. She makes everything real. She makes everything too real, including him.

He touched her, and his whole world changed.

When he stills again, not returning her advances, she wraps her arms around his shoulders, cradling his body against her.

“Solas…”

The worry in her eyes is worse than a blow to his face. His lungs collapse, folding in on each other, and he tries to breathe – he tries –

There is a mural in Skyhold he left unfinished, there is a woman he left and the way her voice catches when she speaks his name tells him he took a part of her with him, yet despite this – despite the unease in her eyes, the anguish in her voice, and every broken promise he has made – he leans his forehead against hers and forces himself to _accept_ it.

He breathes.

He runs four fingers through her ebony hair, tucks loose strands behind her ear, and watches as her eyes follow his every movement. She wants him to stay. She wants him to stay and she doesn’t care that he won’t be there when she opens her eyes.

With her, he could be happy.

It is such a simple truth, one that has never occurred to him because he has carried pain so long he has become adept at it; skilled even. It is an ocean whose currents he learned to see long ago so that he could move through life less affected, less weighed down.

He should have avoided it; he should have lanced the wound, sliced into it and cut it out entirely before the malady seeped into his bloodstream. He should have avoided _her_.

But the ripple of her wave consumed him, and dragged him under.

She could annihilate him with a single kiss, and he could destroy her with the softest spoken word.

 

* * *

 

Lavellan spends hours, days, weeks, in the rotunda, poring over ancient texts found in the Temple of Mythal. Before, the language was unintelligible to her, but with the well, she hears whispers – sees the writing come to life on the pages. It twists in on itself, and reshapes, the letters reforming until some part of her is able to distinguish the original meaning.

Some days she stands in front of the murals for hours, never moving. Dorian sometimes comes to stand beside her, mimicking her ( _his_?) posture – two hands clasped behind her back – and they stay in silence for the most part. Dorian can’t help but occasionally throw a few jibes, though.

“Perhaps this was his master plan, to keep you pining away for him forever staring at this wall,” he tells her. “If you keep sitting in his chair, you’re going to lose all your hair. How dreadful you’d look then.”

But still, she sits in his chair, in his room, and she hasn’t changed a single thing about it. She’s gone through every single book on the list that he ordered, analyzed every single mural. The other murals, they were her actions. The last. She doesn’t know. It lies unfinished, and pray to the Creators as she might, she can’t fathom its meaning. Has it not yet come to pass? Did Solas know of some future event she may play a part in? Or is this unfinished mural meant to be _his_ actions?

He had lied – no, more precisely, he had omitted the truth. What that truth is, she still can’t discern, but she knows there are things Solas did not tell her. He had some greater hand in shaping the events surrounding the Breach than she originally thought possible. It was not coincidence he joined the Inquisition when he did. It was not coincidence he disappeared after holding the broken remains of the foci in his hands.

Some days she remembers singing the songs of Sylaise with her clan, sitting beside the fire as they listened to hahren tell the children stories and the history of their people, and some days the ache in her chest is more than she can bear. She can hear the aravels creaking over dirty plains as they moved, remembers the feel of halla fur beneath her fingers, and –

“I didn’t abandon you,” she says, quietly, as if to reassure herself that it is true.

It is a Keeper’s duty to remember, and remember she will. She will remember the _truth_. She can’t go back, not now. Not when she has more to learn. She doesn’t want to think it, won’t let herself, but there is another reason she will not return. And that reason haunts her every time she looks into a mirror, but marks on her face do not prove her love to her people.

_We are the Dalish: keepers of the lost lore, walkers of the lonely path. We are the last of the Elvhenan, and never again shall we submit._

She will always walk that lonely path, and she will never submit.

 _Never mistake the Dalish for arbiters of true Elvhen culture._ He told her this, and she had not wanted to believe him. Surely they could not have gotten so many things wrong. But as she studied and pored over each text taken from the temple, she could not help but admit he was right. There were things, of course, that were partially correct. The legends had to come from somewhere, after all, but they were irreparably skewed.

In Dalish tales, Ghilan'nain was once a mortal woman, devoted to Andruil and all animals, betrayed and left for dead. As a reward for her devotion, Andruil transformed Ghilan'nain into a beautiful white deer – the first of the halla.

The truth, as it always is, is far more complex and far less pretty. Inscriptions from the temple revealed that Ghilan'nain kept herself from the People. She created monsters in the sky, giants in the depths of the oceans, and beasts in the land. After a year of hunting the beasts, Andruil offered her apotheosis if she would destroy the creations, thus elevating Ghilan’nain as the youngest of the gods.

Each new revelation causes another wave of nausea to course through Lavellan – all of the things she did not know, had grown up believing. But what were they to do? So much has been lost; so much of their culture stolen from them, trampled and culled throughout the ages.

The place where her vallaslin once was seems to burn as she reads the elven writing:

_"His crime is high treason. He took on a form reserved for the gods and their chosen, and dared to fly in the shape of the divine. The sinner belongs to Dirthamen; he claims he took wings at the urging of Ghilan'nain, and begs protection from Mythal. She does not show him favor, and will let Elgar'nan judge him."_

An image of a shifting, shadowy mass with blazing eyes, smoke roiling around its form in the dark appears in her mind's eye. The form is distorted, and where seconds prior there was only one mass she now sees many. She tries to focus on it, to discern whether there is more than one creature, but the image fades entirely in the span of a heartbeat.

"It seems the Dalish at least got the part about Dirthamen being too curious for his own good right," Lavellan sighs. Perhaps her vallaslin was not so ill-chosen after all.

Hours pass, and her eyes become heavy, and she bends her legs under her in his chair and rests her head against her arms. Her breathing softens, eyes drooping to a close…

Some time later, she lifts her head from the table, yawning loudly. When did she –

_No._

She is still asleep.

The air is heavy and stale. This is not Skyhold. This is not anywhere. Time is meaningless here. She smells blood beneath the stone, blood in the pillars. The stench of death lingers around her.

A creature with a forked tongue looms above her like a six storey tower. She cranes her neck to meet his gaze. He devours every star in the sky, trapping them in his giant maw. In the dark, the gleam from his red eyes is all she can see.

She can hear screaming from his mouth – souls of the dead, crying out in vain, crying out in the dark, their bones gnawed by his teeth as he clamps down. _Can't you hear us? Can't you help us?_ They bellow to her. They are not alive, nor are they dead. Their bodies encased in glass cages, their souls burning, malcontent curses spilling from their lips like swarms of insects.

The beast snarls at her, lips pulling back to bare tar black teeth and venom drips from the corner of his jaw, tainting the ground – flowers wilt to mere specks of dust as the acid falls over them.

The creature does not speak. He does not need to. She has crossed into his domain, and he would see her pay for it.

Mythal – or Flemeth, she supposes – did not release her hold on her, not exactly. She, instead, rather ominously told her she had “no commands. not yet.” – whatever that was supposed to mean. Still, the power of the well flows through her. It guides her sometimes, through the twisting layers of the fade, through ancient elven text she should not be able to understand. It speaks to her, not in words, but in visions and feeling – something indescribable.

But then –

Her eyes roll back into her head, an itch inside a small crevice of her brain, a chewing sensation on the back of her neck, and she hears – the voice is different, somehow, unfamiliar, perhaps it has been so long since she heard Flemeth –

_Ma ghilana mir din'an, da'mi. (Guide me into death, little blade.)_

The creature does not move, but – is this a command from _it_? How…

She does not feel the pressure of the geas, not like when Flemeth took control of her body. She does not feel compelled to follow through with the order.

Even so, in her right hand, from sheer instinct alone, a spectral blade manifests.

_Ma emma harel. (You should fear me.)_

“Why?” she yells. “Why do you want me to kill you? What are you?”

She has no desire to fight this beast, not when she could learn from it. If you expect the fade to be a place of malignant demons, then it will be. But try as she might, she is unable to exert her will here. Something is stopping her – this animal is stopping her. She reaches out, tries to manipulate the energy, tries to change this place, but she hits an invisible, incorporeal wall each time.

The creature tilts its head, its giant maw grinding down as chaos tendrils churn from its form, and encircle her waist. In the blink of an eye the shadows manifest into physical ropes and tighten around her body, squeezing like a vice grip. Her eyes widen and she coughs, slicing and hacking the ropes with her blade before she faints.

_Ar tu na'din. Ar tu na'din. (I will kill you. I will kill you.)_

The voice rises louder in her thoughts, urging her on with threats, urging her to _finish_ it.

When the beast’s giant paw rises above her head, she fade steps out of the way, kiting past one of the pillars just as it slams into the floor. Cracks form in the stone and part of the floor gives way underneath the weight of its paw.

The wolf lunges at her with both paws, and she dives forward, rolling to avoid them. The force of the blow causes two pillars on either side of her to burst into pieces, debris falling down as the entire ground quakes beneath her. Lavellan springs to her feet, cloaking herself in the fade – just in time – as part of the rubble passes through her body, leaving her unharmed.

She laughs as she sprints forward, hurling a bolt of lightning at the wolf. There is a rhythm in fighting, a disorder, that she has learned to find comforting. Her fingertips sizzle, and while the beast is paralyzed she has ample time to move into melee range. He opens his jaw, growling, and tendrils of shadow seep from his mouth, sending projectiles of magic toward her. She flicks her wrist, bringing the spirit blade back into existence to deflect them.

Left.

Left.

Right.

Left –

She is too slow, and one of them narrowly slices her across the cheek. Tiny streaks of blood prickle down her face, but she is resilient – she has slain god pretenders, orchestrated the coup of an empire, and more. The fade is child’s play to her.

And so the beast stills, its six red eyes peering down at her, and she grits her teeth –

“Halam sahlin, fen!” _(This ends now, wolf!)_

She embeds the spirit blade, deep, and blood pours from the wolf’s body like rainwater falling over her. The souls in its maw scream their last screams, echoes of despair and agony circling around her, and the beast’s towering body crumbles – shattering his domain. The stars unleash from his mouth, and light floods over Lavellan’s face.

When the wolf is dead, when his blood is on her hands and staining her chest, the voice whispers its last parting words: _Ar lasa mala revas_ , and then it fades away completely.

The next day, the texts from the Temple of Mythal are harder for her to read. She retains some of the knowledge, but.... something is missing.

Is she no longer bound? And the voice… why did it sound so different?

Her eyes rise to the unfinished mural, and she chews at her bottom lip.

 _No_ , she thinks. No. That isn't possible. It can't be.

 

* * *

 

She can taste it in his teeth; she can feel it in the callous of his hands at her back.

_If you remove the layer of nostalgia from stories of the elven gods, you might see the danger._

He flicks a tongue against her shoulder, lips trailing burning kisses, teeth biting into the crook of her neck. She throws her head back and moans his name again, and he laughs, breathless, into her skin. He leaves her skin red and rough, the marks of his teeth a reminder he was there.

He is relentless, kisses her until her lips are swollen and bruised, until she is hazy with pleasure. His fingers fan over her hot flesh, and he tugs her body to his, two hands at her waist, adjusting their position as he lowers her until her back meets soft grass.

His body is over hers, molding so completely her breasts chafe against the fabric of his shirt and against his necklace as they rise and fall, her breathing quickening with each passing second.

There's something primal in his eyes – moonlight illuminating a dark spark in their blue depths. The shadows play off the angles of his jaw, and he smiles, then, measured and refined, the serene expression incongruous with the predatory gaze he levels her with. She sucks in a breath. Lavellan has faced down horrors others could only dream of, decimated self-proclaimed gods, and come out unscathed. She has survived the impossible, but _he_ undoes her so completely.

He is always five steps ahead of her, somehow knowing exactly what she wants and where she wants it despite the fact that he has never allowed himself to be intimate with her in this way until now. Even so, he stills above her, fingers hovering over the strings of her pants. He glances up at her – ever the gentleman – though he already knows the answer to this silent question.

She responds by rolling her hips into his hand, and she laughs when a groan escapes his mouth. He makes quick work of removing the remainder of her clothes, and when his head drops forward, he kisses the inside of her thigh with light, airy brushes of his lips, and Lavellan shivers in the cool night air.

She wants to tell him how much he means to her, wishes beyond wishing there was a way to show this, but there’s always been an unspoken bond between them, and so she curls her arms around his neck, and pulls his face back up to her. She touches his cheek with the palm of her anchor.

"I _will_ find you," she murmurs.

As if in lieu of rebuttal, he brings two fingers to stroke at her slit, and she gasps, widening her legs.

"It would be wiser if you did not," he says.

“Wiser for who?” she cocks an eyebrow. “You?”

He shakes his head at her, and does not respond, returning to kiss between her breasts. She makes to tug him back up to her again, to demand an answer –

The warmth of his mouth meets her, tongue sliding lovingly between her folds before flicking at her clit. Lavellan lets her head fall back into the grass with a breathy sigh, completely forgetting what she was so intent on doing a mere moment before.

His middle finger slides inside her, and then his ring finger, and she knows he can feel just how agonizingly wet she is. He pumps two fingers in and out of her, and she grinds, needy and desperate against his mouth, utterly losing herself in the heat and friction. She is clutching the grass with one hand, tearing the stalks to pieces as his mouth works her over.

“I want – ” she stops, moaning when he crooks his fingers inside her and strokes, deep.

He’s slipping his fingers in and out of her wetness so easily, so softly, now, in shallow little thrusts, teasing her more and more as he nudges and licks everywhere but at her clit. He drives her to the brink and then prolongs it, and she huffs in agitation.

“Solas,” she snaps.

“Mhm?” he mumbles against her, and she just _knows_ there’s some ridiculously smug expression on his face without even seeing him.

He peers up at her just in time to see the murderous glare she levels him with. He chuckles, bending back down, and she’s so damnably _tense_ her eyes roll back into her head when his tongue presses against her clit.

She brings a hand down to wrap around his head, urging him on, and hears a satisfactory hiss from his lips. He slips a third finger inside her, and within seconds he’s forcing her back to that brink, his tongue curling around her clit in deep, messy, strokes that leave her aching and gasping. She grinds against his fingers mercilessly as he thrusts them in and out of her, faster, faster, _faster_ , and she’s suddenly moaning and begging for release, until one final flick of his tongue sends her over the edge. Her back arches off the ground and her eyes glaze over as she comes with a low, breathy noise.

He continues to gently lick her folds, coaxing her through it, staying with her until her orgasm has subsided. When her back hits the grass again, he pulls away and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. She meets his eyes, and –

She realizes he is staring at her with an expression she can only describe as absolute worship.

He lies back into the grass beside her, and pulls her into his arms. They stay like that – for how long, she doesn’t know. They stare at the stars they can see through the dense foliage, he draws shapes into her back with his fingers, nails lightly scratching at her skin, and she listens to his steady heartbeat.

She reminds him, again, that she will find him, and he gives her a sorrowful smile, but does not protest.

Instead, he presses a single, soft kiss to her lips, and says, “ _Surface,_ vhenan.”

When she wakes in the stillness of night, she is in her own bed in Skyhold.

In the dark, she doesn’t bother checking to see if he’s beside her, she already knows the answer. She wraps her arms around herself, cradling her own body as she exhales her memories. She can still feel him, his lips on her lips, hear him groan into her mouth, and with a sick twist in her gut she realizes she has never felt emptier than in this very moment.

She brings her fingers to her lips. They are numb as if from a winter’s grasp spell, and she knows he was right – leaving was kinder, but she never asked him to be kind.

In the stories, they say Fen’Harel waits in the Beyond. They say Fen’Harel preys on the sleeping, devouring their souls.

Whether the stories are true or not, she cannot be sure. Is Fen'Harel, as Dalish lore suggests, a god of deception, or was he a god of rebellion, of noble struggle? Struggle against what? Rebellion against what - the other gods? Were his motives skewed and lost to time, irreparably muddled just like all of the other legends?

Who can say. She has learned that nothing is certain. But whether or not Fen'Harel stalks the beyond waiting to prey on her is of little concern.

Because you see...

_She has Solas._


End file.
